Irish Are Enthusiaistic Online Shoppers – EU Scoreboard

More and more EU consumers are shopping online and their trust in e-commerce has increased, in particular in buying online from other EU countries. The pattern is particularly strong in Ireland, with Irish consumers also showing very high levels of trust in buying online.

Almost 6 in 10 (59.2%) Irish people bought online in 2016, up from 33.1% in 2007, almost doubling over the last ten years.

This is the 9th highest in the EU where the average was 55.1%, up from 29.7% in 2007. The UK had the highest share of online shoppers at 82.6% followed by Denmark at 81.5%, Luxembourg at 78.4% and Sweden at 75.5%.

Commissioner for Justice and Consumers, Věra Jourová, said: “My priority has been to improve trust of the people and smaller retailers in the Digital Single Market. Consumers are now more confident when they shop online. And we’ve equipped them with a quick procedure to get their money back if something goes wrong, even when buying from another country. The challenge now is to encourage more businesses to respond to this growing demand.”

EU legal protection for shopping online has greatly developed in recent years, with free para-legal help and simple dispute resolution now available to consumers (in Ireland from the European Consumer Centre Ireland ,co-funded by the EU and the Irish authorities).

Irish consumers have the 2nd highest levels of confidence in online shopping in the EU (coming in just behind the UK) with 84.6% expressing confidence in domestic purchasing (compared to 87.6% in the UK and an EU average of 72.4%) and 76% in purchasing from another EU State (compared to 77% in the UK and an EU average of 57.8%).

Ireland’s medium and large companies also outperform EU neighbours when it comes to selling online.30.3% of Irish businesses with 10 or more employees engage in online sales (2015) whereas the EU average is at 20.4%.